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returnzero

78 karma · joined August 22, 2021

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returnzero··on The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk (2023)
I imagine the difference is that Scotch tape is much better aligned with the R&D that goes into their other products in the adhesives and films categories compared to magnetic tape. If they didn't intend to go further into developing products in the computing space then selling it while it still had value was probably a wise call.
returnzero··on Expand Everything: Userscript to click "show more" links to expand all the text
I would imagine it's for measuring engagement. They can then use the data to tailor their ad sale strategy and I imagine their content strategy.
returnzero··on Bumble releases open-source A.I. feature to help combat unsolicited nudes
Many years ago (ca. 2009?) at a previous employer we had an enterprise email scanner which included a content filtering feature which could block "pornographic images". We ended up turning it off as it had too many false positives since it was an insurance company that dealt with injuries so a lot of legitimate injury photos would get classed as porn and blocked. I think it was basically looking at how much of an image was skin tones.

The more interesting thing about that feature was that it A) only blocked nude images of white people, and B) would aggressively block photos of golden retrievers much to the annoyance of someone in the claims team who bred them and occasionally received photos to her work email.

returnzero··on Use `Python -m Pip`
> But still slowly and still not fully ready(bugs).

I use poetry every day and so far it's been pretty great. The main complications I have had are with accessing private pypi repos in Azure DevOps pipelines which use short lived tokens but it just looks a little clunky, still works.

> Also its odd that pyproject.toml (not poetry.toml which is the poetry settings for repo) is the dependency definition file and poetry.lock is the lock file

This is because poetry is using Python's PEP 518[1] specification rather than define their own build requirements format. It also isn't limited to just building, you can also include the configuration for other python tools like `pytest`[2].

[1] https://peps.python.org/pep-0518/

[2] https://docs.pytest.org/en/stable/reference/customize.html#p...

returnzero··on RetroArch: Automatic Frame Delay to reduce input latency
Given the number of platforms that RetroArch runs defaulting any new behaviour to off makes sense. Particularly for features like this which are global.
returnzero··on Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?
With companies the size of the FAANGs they appear to struggle with change and being dynamic. A lot of the time they purchase existing companies/tech in the direction they want to steer towards.

I would argue that while Facebook/Meta has been more of a gradual evolution Netflix has shown that it can transition to a whole new way of working within its domain. They revolutionised DVD rentals by combining a web UI with efficient warehousing and logistics. When they saw that infrastructure was getting close to making streaming viable they pivoted to digital delivery and not only did it allow them to keep their existing customer base who would have eventually moved away from DVD rentals on their own, but it also brought in other international markets where DVD rentals never would have worked.

I think I agree that Facebook/Meta will decline without disappearing in much the same way that IBM has. They will acquire new businesses and sell off old ones without really being seen as particularly innovative. Netflix on the other hand I think will stick around but will likely change into more of a content producer rather than a distributor like it has been. Beyond that, who knows?

returnzero··on Why Some Dads Don’t Take Leave: They Think They’ll Be Punished
I'm a software engineer and my peers have always typically been men. I've actually had a different experience where I find being a father rather difficult and outside my comfort zone however most of my male peers don't. They go googly eyed every time a colleague brings their new baby into the office.

I've had to work hard to learn how to be a father including taking the rare opportunity to be a stay at home dad while my wife temporarily returned to work for 14 weeks. Interestingly some of my fellow engineer dads lamented the fact that they couldn't be stay at home parents, even if only for the early years, since they typically earned a lot more than their wives. It just didn't make sense financially for them.

Men taking care of their kids isn't some fad or temporary woke trend. Men have always taken care of their kids but changes in society are now opening up different ways for them to do that.